Giveaway: 1st Edition AD&D “Unearthed Arcana” Reprint

Wizards of the Coast is awesome enough to provide us with five copies of the new 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Unearthed Arcana reprint book to giveaway to our readers! We haven’t really done a giveaway or contest in quite a while, so I’m keeping this nice and simple – all you have to do in order to be entered to win one of the five copies is leave a comment on this post!

This contest is unfortunately only open to readers in the United States, so please only enter if you can provide us with a valid US address. At the end of the day (midnight) next Tuesday, March 5th we will close comments and I will randomly determine five winners from the comments here and notify them by e-mail. It’s nice and easy, and you can get an awesome book delivered to your house just by posting a comment!

In 1974, the world changed forever when Gary Gygax introduced the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The legacy of his innovative ideas and the extensive reach of his powerful influence can be seen in virtually every facet of gaming today.

To help honor his work and his memory, we created limited-edition reprints of the original 1st Edition core rulebooks. Now, the original Unearthed Arcana has been faithfully reproduced in a new premium edition with gilded pages. The cover design mirrors that of the premium reprints of the 1st Edition Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual. This book includes errata published in Dragon magazine.

For an added bit of fun, or for those that require more structure, please feel free to share any stories you may have related to AD&D or the Unearthed Arcana book specifically!

Fine print: US addresses only. One entry per household. Critical Hits reserves the right at its sole discretion to disqualify any entrants it chooses for abusing the contest in any way. Thief-Acrobats need not apply.

I loved this book when it came out! Yes, it was a mish-mash of stuff, the barbarian and new cavalier classes were ridiculous, and some of the new rules were wonky. But I loved the cantrips, the new spells, we abused the heck out of weapon specialization, and learned far more about different types of pole arms than any sane person should.

I remember staring for hours at my brothers’ AD&D books when I was kid. I was a bit too young to play with them… at least that’s what they kept telling me. Now they keep hounding me to run games for them. Oh the irony! Having a copy of Unearthed Arcana would be a tidy bit of nostalgia. Thanks for the giveaway!

It added spells, classes, and even a pseudo prestige class with the thief acrobat. Bought it used and like most the binding gave out and some pages are loose. Loved the book and used it until a few years ago.

The thing I remember most of the old UAs was the fact that the binding was terrible and they all fell apart. I don’t think I ever saw a copy that had actually seen significant use that hadn’t split the binding. Here’s hoping that’s one part of the tradition they DON’T emulate in the re-issue!

Not many people mention it, but one of my favorite things about that book was the art. Even after I had read it many times and was no longer playing AD&D, I would still flip through it just to refresh my mind on pictures. Thanks a ton for doing this, my copy is a beat up dog eared mess!

This is one of the few AD&D hardcovers that I’m missing. I like to buy locally, and most of the “hobby” shops around here don’t carry a lot of used books. They haven’t gotten in any of the new reprints, either. I would love to have this!

I’ve been avoiding reading my old books since I’m in the process of updating the campaign I wrote back in ’79 while in college. The new PC tools are a quantum leap beyond what I was using back then (pencil and paper).

Oh, I’ve been playing D&D since the fall of ’77 when I was attending the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater. The local gaming store was down in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, named The Dungeon…

I remember picking this up at my local B. Dalton bookstore. I was somewhat confused at first with what to do with it but then our group discovered the new classes. The barbarian was the first new class to be played. This character was the cause of much fun. The friend who played him still to this day has a nickname based on that character. Vinny (Vinhir) will live forever in our memories, if not in the hallowed halls of Valhalla.

Well now, this is fun news to wake up to on a foggy California morning.
I have very fond memories of Unearthed Arcana. There was quite a sense of excitement, as the first update to First Edition rules came along, optional as they may have been.
I would love to have a copy!

I could have used this in our recent 1e game – we just did the complete Temple of Elemental Evil. Other guys in the group still had their old copies, though the binding was dodgy as usual. Mine had completely fallen apart ages ago. Free game books means that my game budget buys even MORE game books. Yay!

Bought a set of original AD&D players handbook, DMG, and MMs I & II for my godchildren and have been sharing the joy of tabletop rpgs with them for a couple of months now. A copy of the Unearthed Arcana would certainly be a wonderful addition to their fledgling RPG library! Keep up the great work.

I would love to have one of these again. I remember cutting up the errata from Dragon Magazine and pasting it into the relevant sections of this book: destroying the value of both the magazine and the book! Ah, youth!

One my favorite memories of Unearthed Arcana come from my friend Jack’s Cavalier. The fun began one night when we it was pointed that Jack’s Cavalier could not be thrown from his saddle and if he fell with his mount he had a large chance not to be hurt. Well, as it would happen the rest of the table decided they need to test this theory, which started the many tests of tripping the Cavalier’s horse. Good times.

I remember using that book back in the day. We went through Tomb of Horrors, Against the Giants series and tons of the other classics. Of course after all that my original copy is missing a few pages and held together with little more than duct tape.

My longest-running D&D campaign was anchored by a Cavalier named Keith, whose talking horse named Delland was the butt of many a joke. Dammit if he didn’t love the hell out of that character. I was often accused of favoritism by the other players, because Keith found all kinds of neat magic items that seemed tailored for his character (4th edition-style?), including magic barding.

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